When Hulk Hogan left WWE in 1993, the company was in dire straits -- not only was their biggest star gone, but Vince McMahon's indictment for allegedly distributing steroids to his wrestlers threatened to end the company as a whole. Immediately, smaller, more athletic -- and hopefully, cleaner -- stars were pushed into top positions. WrestleMania X was the first WrestleMania without Hogan, and in many ways, it stood as the test -- would WWE sink or swim without its bread and butter? In the opener, Bret Hart took on his jealous younger brother Owen, and the result was a technical masterpiece of the sort rarely seen in WWE. Bret was already established to an extent, having been WWE Champion the previous year, but Owen's clean victory made him an immediate star as well. The spectacle didn't stop there, though. In the most well-remembered bout of the evening (which says something on a card that had Bret versus Owen), Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon clashed for the Intercontinental Championship in the first high-profile ladder match in wrestling history. Though the bout may seem tame by today's standards, at the time it was an amazing show of athleticism -- and again, one not typically seen in a WWE ring. Though Michaels was the loser of the affair, he cemented his status as a world-class talent with his performance -- especially when he dove off the top of the ladder onto the supine Ramon. After WrestleMania X, it was clear that the new generation had arrived, and WWE would be in good hands.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
